


Three Seders

by Onefalsestep



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Feels, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 17:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12965064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onefalsestep/pseuds/Onefalsestep
Summary: It’s about remembering. It’s about ritual. It’s about the search for home. Three Passover seders in the lives of Dan and Casey.





	Three Seders

**_I. I know you’re waiting_ **

 

In the aftermath of Draft Day 2000, Dan hardly slept. He kept his head low, and he polished his copy quietly and diligently, and if he accidentally caught Casey’s eye, he looked away, knowing he had no right to demand Casey’s attention right now, no right to meet Casey’s gaze. Casey’s gaze, which always steadied him, which always made him feel better, no matter what he was feeling: Casey’s eyes, cutting across the room at a party, amused as Bobbi Bernstein cornered Dan yet again, or warm, reassuring, as Dan waited nervously to launch into a particularly tricky segment at the desk. He couldn’t meet Casey’s eyes, and it made him feel sick, because he didn’t know where to look anymore, so mostly he looked at the ground, and mostly he didn’t talk to anyone, unless asked a direct question, or to beg the forgiveness he’d already gotten from everyone but Casey.

As Passover approached, the nausea grew worse. He’d intended to ask Casey to join his seder this year, long before all of this, and now he and Casey were barely speaking full sentences to each other if they weren’t about the A.L. East. He’d meant to ask him, and he’d wanted it to be right, and now he’d fucked it up, ruined in a matter of seconds this thing they’d had for ten years, this thing Danny had been sure, only a few weeks before, that they would have forever.

They’d already shared many holidays together over the years. They’d celebrated together on the road, and in the midst of shows, and just because they wanted to: the first Thanksgiving after Casey’s divorce, when Casey had finally gotten Danny an “anniversary” present—a bottle of Gin de Mahón, which Danny had first learned to love in what he hadn’t realized was Spain—and the Christmas the year before that, when Lisa had taken Charlie out of town despite the fact that Casey had a show and Dan had tried to cheer Casey up by having him over afterwards for Chinese food, a viewing of  _Die Hard_ , and yes, even eggnog. But they had never shared a seder, and it bothered Dan, because it felt like Casey had never stepped over the threshold into the most sacred part of Danny’s life, that he’d never become a part of the core of it the way Dan had become a part of Casey’s. Casey had never been back with Dan to Connecticut, or partaken any of the quiet, intimate acts of ritual that made bonded family to family, in Danny’s mind. Yet Casey was family. Casey was his family more than anyone else in the world, now that Sam was gone.

So he’d asked him. And it had felt like a punch in the gut, a physical blow, when Casey had turned him down. Had dismissed him without even manufacturing a good excuse, as though the ask was out of line, as if Dan was foolish to even try. And Dan had left that empty chair, for Casey as much as for Elijah (Eli’s coming, well, you better hide your heart), and then he’d heard that knock at the door. His heart had stuttered, and he’d let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding.

He didn’t know what Casey was talking about as he rambled on about the guy in his video store, but he didn’t care. It had gotten him here, here, where Dan could finally touch him again, where he could gather Casey up in his arms, where he could feel the leather of Casey’s jacket, the jacket that smelled so strongly of Casey, brushing against his cheek.

“See, you do it good,” he’d whispered, on the edge of tears. “You do it good,” Casey had answered, his voice near breaking, and Dan had known then how much this rift had been killing him too. They were a unit, and they couldn’t function without each other. Professionally, personally, they weren’t ever meant to be apart. He was glad they both knew that now. He was overjoyed, and overwhelmed, that Casey wanted to fix it.

“You know, we’ve got a lot of repair work to do,” Casey said after they let each other ago, and that simple statement had thrilled Dan too. Casey wanted to work on it. Casey thought Dan was worth it. And Dan, who always had a little trouble believing he was worth anything at all, even now, was willing to do anything he could to prove to Casey that they could get past this. That they could be better than ever, and that they were meant to be partners, that there was no better match than both of them at their best.

Later, in bed, his mind kept coming back to that moment in the hallway, just after Casey told him he wouldn’t trade in the last ten years of working with him for anything. Casey’s body, pressed up against his. Casey’s arms, always stronger than Danny expected once he was in them, supporting him, holding him. Holding him like Casey didn’t want to let go either. Why, he wondered, do we have to let go? Why can’t we just hang onto each other with everything we’ve got?

He drifted off to sleep, still thinking of Casey’s embrace, still thinking of the safety there, and the warmth, the warmth and comfort that only Casey, in his most unguarded moments, could generate.

 

**_II. I know you’ve been waiting for a long, long time_ **

 

The next year Dan held the seder at his apartment. They weren’t working, and Jeremy’s place was a mess as he prepared to finally move in with Natalie, so Danny’s home had been designated Passover central. Jeremy had helped him set everything up, with Jeremy’s mother calling constantly in the weeks beforehand to offer unsolicited but ultimately helpful advice, and this year the ritual felt real, and right, and certain. Not rushed or fraught, but a reminder, as it was meant to be, of the passing of years, and the endurance of tribes, and the importance of sharing a simple meal with the ones you loved, no matter where you were in the world, and no matter the obstacles you faced.

Casey came. Casey came, and Dan hadn’t even worried over asking him this year, because they were good. They were really good. They were great, in fact. Their ratings were higher than ever, and they were even well on their way to giving ESPN a run for their money, with the support Quo Vadimus had brought for new stories, new ideas, new direction from Dana and renewed energy from Natalie. The banter crackled, the scripts flowed, and behind the scenes Casey and Dan were _CaseyandDan_ again, an unbreakable duo, seamless in their movements, in the way they understood each other, the way they spoke and worked and wrote.

He hoped the goodness he could see on the surface, the obvious camaraderie, the relaxed atmosphere of this Draft Day, when no one had even mentioned the previous year, went all the way to the core. It felt like it did, but Casey didn’t always dig into his true emotions about big events, not until he was up against the wall. And what happened last year had been the build-up of years of little slights and fractures, of not having it out right then, when comments were made and jealousies were nursed and each of them did things that got under each other’s skin. They were careful around each other now: careful, but without talking it out, and Dan still worried a little. Not often. Not at work. But alone, at home, lying sleepless in bed, he worried. Because he needed Casey near him all the time now. It had only gotten worse over the last year. He couldn’t bear the thought of any distance, and he refused to let anything, anything, like what had come between them happen again.

So after the seder, when Casey stayed behind to help him clean up, and Jeremy and Natalie left to tackle the thankless task of transferring New York apartments, and everyone else headed home, he asked. Casey was calm, as calm as Dan had ever seen him, with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows as he leaned over the sink, and his face a little flushed from the wine. He seemed content, and Dan stood for a moment in the doorway watching him, thinking he wanted to hold onto this moment, just this small slice of time, just like that. For as long as Casey would let him. For as long as they could allow themselves to have this peace.

“I notice Jeremy skipped the pageant this year.” Casey placed the last glass on the rack. “It’s too bad. I wanted to play the pharaoh.”

Dan laughed. “With Natalie back in his good graces, you’d have had a shot. Bet you could have at least gotten an audition to play the assistant, anyway.” He crossed over to perch on the counter beside Casey, who was drying his hands on the dishtowel. “It means a lot to me, Casey. That you came. That you could be here, this year.”

Casey turned to face him, his hip nearly bumping against Dan’s knee. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, Danny. I mean it. I know last year was hard, and I never want to go through anything like that again. But I think it might have been good for us. It made me realize, anyway, that I—” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Anyway. It made me realize how important this is. Not that I didn’t know, but I don’t think I really knew until we almost threw it away.”

Danny watched his eyes. Casey wasn’t looking right at him anymore, but at the floor, his gaze steadily focused on the awful linoleum Dan still hadn’t gotten it together to replace. Danny reached out and took his hand. “Case. We’re good, right? We’re repaired? Rebuilt? Because I’ll do whatever else you need. I want this to work. I don’t always want there to be—I don’t know, cracks in our foundation.”

Casey’s lips quirked into a smile. “Let’s drop the renovation metaphors before we start talking about the power tools of emotional labor, Danny. Okay?”

Dan chuckled. “Okay.” He didn’t let go of Casey’s hand, and without meaning to, he’d started making small, nervous circles over Casey’s knuckles with his thumb. “I’m serious, though. You need to tell me if there’s more work to do.”

Casey put his other hand on top of Dan’s, stilling it. “We’re okay, Danny. We’re more than okay. In fact, I’d say we’re great. We’re really, really good.” Casey looked down at their entwined hands. “Really, really good. Which is why I’m afraid I’m going to screw this up.”

Dan tilted his head. “How could you screw this up?”

Casey met his gaze then, and the force of it nearly took Dan’s breath away. Dan knew Casey’s face as well as anyone’s in the world, and he’d never seen this expression. Casey looked—petrified. Petrified, but determined, and sad, and hopeful, all at once. “By doing this, Danny,” he said, and then he leaned in a little, and pressed a kiss to Danny’s lips.

For a moment they didn’t move. The world didn’t move. Dan thought maybe it had stopped. And then his body began to respond of its own accord, acting on long-buried impulses he didn’t even know he had. Because this was Casey, after all, and Casey’s body had never felt anything but right in his arms, the way that Casey’s lips now felt right on his, the way that his tongue, slipping over Danny’s teeth, felt right, right in a way he would have never known, but couldn’t deny, now that Casey was right here. He grasped the fabric at the back of Casey’s shirt and pulled him closer, so that Casey was right between Dan’s legs, and then he was lost, because all he could feel was Casey, Casey in this incredible new way, Casey’s hands slipping up into Danny’s hair, Casey’s thighs pressed tight against his legs, his lips warm and smooth on Dan’s.

They broke apart with a gasp, and Dan stared at him. “Did you—how did you know—I mean, _I_ didn’t know, and I know things, Casey, I’m a person who knows—”

“Danny?”

“Yeah.”

“Shut up.” Casey pulled him in for another kiss, deepening the pressure, shifting so that the friction of their two entangled bodies sent new thrills of pleasure through Dan, from his fingers to the very tips of his toes. Oh, he thought, breathing hard against Casey’s mouth, _oh_. All that energy always crackling between them, all that tension that never seemed to slack, but only build and build: this was what it was building to. _This is to what it was building_ , he heard Casey correct him in his head, _although I’d rewrite that sentence entirely_ , and his tongue slid against Casey’s, and he nearly laughed out loud, because how had he missed this? Casey was already part of him. Already the part of him Danny valued most. Already in his bones, under his skin, running through his mind, Casey’s words, Casey’s thoughts, the feel of Casey, always beside him, always thrumming through his veins.

He gasped a little, realizing how badly he needed this, how afraid he was, suddenly, that this thing he hadn’t even realized he wanted, this thing as essential as breathing, was ephemeral, fleeting, a treasure he could lose. But then Casey was dragging him up from the counter, his fists clutching Danny’s shirt just under the collar, and he was whispering, “Bedroom?” and Danny was nodding, the only possible response _godyescasey_ , and they were stumbling backwards towards Danny’s bed, unable to disentangle themselves from one another, which had always been their problem, only it didn’t seem like such a problem now, now that Danny had realized the solution was simply to grab hold of Casey and never loosen his grip, not for anything.

 

**III. _And I’m coming home_**

 

“Dana and Calvin?”

“She said they're coming at 6, but you know Calvin's always early.”

“Natalie, Jeremy, and the baby?”

“Probably closer to 6:30, if the train's on time.”

“Isaac and Esther?”

“They’re—” The doorbell rang. “I’m guessing that’s them now.” Casey headed down the hallway, calling over his shoulder. “Charlie, you want to start preparing the plate?”

“Sure, Dad,” Charlie called back from the kitchen. Dan smiled. Charlie was old hat at this by now, having spent three Passovers with Dan and Casey. He’d gotten inordinately excited about the first one, in his endearingly geeky way, and had asked Dan a million questions about the whys and wherefores of the rituals that Dan rapidly realized he didn’t have all the answers to. He’d finally bought Charlie a book intended for bar and bat-mitzvah making teens about the holiday’s background, and Charlie had consumed it eagerly, matching perhaps only Jeremy in the volume of obscure Pesach trivia he had at his fingertips.

Dan followed Casey to the front door, where he was greeted by Isaac, grinning and holding one arm open for a hug, the other resting on his cane. “Daniel! You’re looking well. Rural life must agree with you.”

Danny laughed. “I don’t think Beacon qualifies as ‘rural,’ Isaac.” He and Casey had bought this house in the Hudson Valley three-and-half years ago, and had been spending more and more time here since Dan had left sports to focus on political writing, which he mostly did from his study while Casey commuted to the city throughout the week for his new gig at NBC.

“Anywhere you can’t get decent chow mein delivered to your door day or night is rural,” Isaac grumbled, pushing his way past Danny to embrace Casey. Dan hugged Esther and ushered her in, catching sight of Calvin and Dana’s sleek blue Audi just pulling into the drive. Casey led Isaac and Esther to the kitchen, and Danny stayed on the porch, waving at the new arrivals.

Calvin and Dana had gotten married the year before, after Dana took an executive producer position at ESPN. Dan and Casey had both left _Sports Night_ by then, and while Dana still loved the show, she told Dan over drinks in the city that she loved Calvin more. “I never thought I’d hear you say that about any man, Dana,” Dan had said, and she had smiled, one of those heartbreakingly genuine Dana smiles that were so rare in her times of greatest stress.

“I didn’t think I’d ever say it either, Danny. But it’s true. And the job at ESPN’s a good one. More money, more vacation time—which, hey, I may actually use now—and no one whispering that I only have the job because I’m sleeping with the owner of the network.”

Dan shook his head. “That’s crazy. You were there for years before Calvin. I’m sure people don’t believe that.”

“Well, to be fair, it’s mostly Sally who whispers it. And she doesn’t whisper so much as speak about it at full volume in every public space she can.” Dana took a sip of her cocktail. “But I’m still ready to move on. I want to be with him, and I want to do my work, and I don’t want those things to be one and the same.” She’d leveled a look at him. “I’m sure you understand that.”

“I do.” That first year of dating Casey while continuing to co-anchor _Sports Night_ with him had been rough, while also exhilarating. Bickering that should have been left in the bedroom spilled over into the office, and the quality downtime they got to spend together often felt crowded with unwritten scripts, with small gripes from the week at work, with games they couldn’t sit back and watch in peace without competing to have the better analysis. Over all this hung the knowledge that the inevitable scandal of their coming out was going to be far, far worse if they remained a visible duo on the TV sets of three million American families, and in the end Danny decided that fallout wasn’t worth it. He’d loved doing _Sports Night_ , doing _Lone Star_ , working with Casey for all those incredible years. But now that he had Casey in his life for good, had Casey in his bed and his arms, he realized he didn’t need that anymore. Their onscreen partnership had been, in many ways, a substitute for the real thing, for what they had now, just like Dan’s pathological need to be on TV had been a substitute for finding real love, real affirmation, from the real people around him, the ones who didn’t see him through a pane of glass. And so he’d moved on. He’d left, and Casey had understood, though he’d fought him at first, and even Dana had understood, though she’d fought him even harder until he sat her down and told her what was really going on, and then she’d gotten quiet for a while before she’d said, “Well, that explains a lot, Dan. I gotta tell ya, that explains a _whole_ lot.”

He watched her walking up the long drive with Calvin and felt Casey come up behind him, resting his hand on Dan’s shoulder. Danny never could have imagined this moment a decade ago: never could have imagined their little _Sports Night_ family would hold, and that it would look like this. He and Casey had been together five years. Five years, and sometimes Dan still couldn’t believe it. Sometimes he’d look over at Casey and think: does he really know how much I love him? Does he really feel that for me, that kind of intensity? And then Casey would meet his gaze and smile like Danny was the greatest thing he’d ever seen and Dan would think, yeah. Yeah, he does. And there was no better feeling in the world.

He reached back to thread his fingers through Casey’s and leaned into his chest a little. “Did you rehearse your script?”

Casey pressed a kiss into Danny’s hair, laughing. “Charlie walked me through it. Got an ear for languages, just like his old man. You’d be impressed with his Hebrew.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Casey was going to bless the wine this year, and took his responsibilities as seriously as Charlie did. While Jeremy’s mother would probably object to a Gentile performing the Kiddush, with some sound reason, this was Danny’s seder, open to chosen people and goyim alike. He wanted Casey and Charlie to partake in every part of it, because they were his family. This was his home. He’d built it painstakingly, over a long stretch of years. Tonight, he would relish and enjoy. Tonight they would break matzah, and remember, and cherish each other’s company, celebrating the wondrous truth that they were all still together as one, healthy and happy, after all they’d been through, after all the trouble they’d seen.

* * *

 

After everyone left, Danny pulled Casey into the bedroom. Charlie was already asleep, likely aided by the couple of sips of wine Casey allowed him to have as part of the meal. They made love, sweet and slow, and Danny reminded Casey that it was a mitzvah, and a double mitzvah on Shabbat, which was when this particular Passover happened to fall. “And here I barely knew what a seder was a few years ago,” Casey teased, kissing his way down Dan’s chest in the afterglow.

“I remember.” Dan’s voice was quiet.

Casey looked up at him. “You remember how we thought we might lose this?”

Dan nodded. “It terrified me.” He drew a long breath. “I can tell you that now, Case. I was absolutely terrified.”

“I know.” Casey crawled back up, pressing his lips to Dan’s. “I know. I never should have scared you like that. I didn’t know—like I said, I didn’t know back then. But it showed me you’re everything to me, Danny. Absolutely everything.”

They kissed, Casey’s hand coming up to cup his face, and Danny had a sense-memory of that time Casey had held him in his arms, at that first seder, lo those many years ago. He thought of Casey's voice, blessing the wine tonight, and it blended with his recollection of Jeremy's intonation as he spoke the same prayer in the  _Sports Night_ conference room. He'd been so happy then, with Casey by his side, and he hadn't even known why, not fully. Now he knew. He'd have many more years of sitting happily by Casey, and every year he would remember. Every year he would mark the date. They had other anniversaries now, other firsts burned into Danny's mind, but he knew something had shifted with that first seder, something that had brought them here, to this bed, to this home they'd made.

"I love you," he whispered into Casey's skin, and Casey answered him in kind, like the call and response of a ritual, and there was none more profound. "I love you," Danny said again, for all the times he hadn't been able to, "I love you," and they drifted into sleep, Danny still holding Casey close to him, as certain, as determined as ever, that he would never let him go. 

**Author's Note:**

> The section headings are lyrics from the song "Elijah," by the Mountain Goats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvUsUNUMohE


End file.
